A bid for cash to create a world visitor centre to pay homage to Nuneaton’s most famous daughter has sensationally failed.

It has been revealed the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has turned down the George Eliot Fellowship’s application for a key slice of funding towards the world visitor centre project.

For the past five years, members of the George Eliot Fellowship have dreamed of creating a visitor centre in old outbuildings at Griff House for the woman who put the town on the global literary map.

While the news from the HLF is a hammer blow, Fellowship members are still determined to make the dream become a reality, especially given the fact that next year is the 200th anniversary of George Eliot's birthday.

George Eliot

John Burton, chair of the fellowship, said: “Sadly they have turned down our application.

"I was very fed up when I heard but we are now bouncing back, not giving up and looking for other ways of getting the money we need to match fund what we have already had offered.

“There was fantastic support locally, I really thought it might help swing it for us with the Heritage Lottery Fund, but obviously not.

"But we will not give up on this, we will do all we can to make sure that the visitor centre comes to fruition.”

Vanessa Harbar, Head of HLF West Midlands, confirmed: “We understand this will be disappointing news for the Griff Preservation Trust.

"Our panel had concerns over sustainability, the rebuild element of the project, and our understanding that there are issues with the lease, all of which meant we were unable to award funding.

"We recognise the heritage importance of George Eliot and we remain open to discussing alternative project proposals with the applicant.”

The dream is to turn George Eliot's former house at Griff into a world visitor centre.

Not giving up hope

Behind-the-scenes work is underway to think of ways to get the money needed to pay for the centre works.

Fellowship members want to create centre at Griff, the house where the author lived until she was 21, so that book lovers from across the globe who make a pilgrimage to the town to learn more about the novelist have a focal point.

The group estimates that they need to raise £200,000 to de-construct the existing building and rebuild it to look like the original as it was in George Eliot’s childhood, but in a form which meets modern building regulations.

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Whitbread, who own the site, have offered up to £80,000 in match funding for the project and the ‘Fellowship has raised a further £9,000 from its members.

Now they need to fund at least another £80,000 to get the project off the ground.

“We think that we could get the work done and the building be water-tight for around £170,000,” he said.

“Then we would have to raise the rest to equip it.”

In the meantime, the Fellowship is forging ahead with its plans for a host of events to mark the writer’s special milestone next year.

Different events are due to be held every month of next year to promote and publicise the writer’s famed works.